


helios // ephemera

by snoozyfern (orphan_account)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, mentions of Alpha Dave, mentions of Alpha Rose, mentions of Grandma English, mentions of the Condesce, this is a pretty deep and depressing one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-19
Updated: 2013-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-05 05:11:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1089990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/snoozyfern
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To him you were Helios.</p>
<p>To him, you were Ephemera.</p>
            </blockquote>





	helios // ephemera

To him, you were Helios.

As far as he was concerned, he was the only person in the world. Nothing to keep him company apart from a few soulless robots. Seagulls composed his family like the most haunting and shrill of orchestras, single violins out of tune with a lingering note that stretched out like a sheet over the endless ocean expanse around him. He talked to himself a lot, _to stop himself from forgetting how to speak_ , he said. You thought it was only a matter of time until the solitary confinement of the future made him go insane. He was the sharp _tap, tap tap_ of a foot, the _drip, drip, drip_ of a burst pipe, the nervous twitch. Underneath him, was Austin, Atlantis. The birthplace and eternal grave of his brother. The man who saved the universe and died as the salty tears of the rainclouds above mixed with his blood, and his sister's. The floating records, hovering mixtapes. The broken china. The levitating corpses in the vast body of the ocean. Not deep enough to be crushed by the pressure, but so deep you can barely see the rooftops from the surface of the turquoise-blue basement below. Above him, was the fleet of warships and battle drones of the Witch, Her Imperious Condescension. The whirring of machinery, that was just too unfamiliar. The searchlights. The sirens. The _duck and hide Dirk, for fuck's sake **hide**_.

You dragged the sun across his sky on your chariot. You set a daily timer to raise it, as a gift from the past, and the batteries have yet to wear out. 

To him, you were Ephemera.

As far as he was concerned, he was the only person in his little isolated corner of the world. His only protectors were the trees and bushes, the rain, the lakes, the rivers, the petrichorous smell of a new rain. The only whisper of his childhood that remained was his grandmother, stuffed into an unceremonious little vase. He wasn't able to find a suitably beautiful vessel for the dust that was Grandma English, all the vases and vessels he'd found on various tomb raidings were often too fragile, or shattered already. _At least it wasn't some tupperware container!!_ , he told you. As if his only emotion was happiness, joy, painful optimism. A forced smile. A tear, yanked back behind his sockets. His existence was that one scene in the Truman Show, where he reaches the edge of his world and the sky is made of plywood. Of course, he would know all about that, the day he realised, he was Truman. His life wasn't meant to be real, his world was limited. Every time he tried to leave his island, he couldn't bear himself to go, yet the only storms and tidal waves that were present swam in his mind, behind his eyes, in the lump forming in his throat. You listened to him cry through crackled Skype software, where your virtual, imaginary arms wound around him, _ssh, it's okay, you have me_. But he never really did, did he?

You were a brief pleasure, a split second of enjoyment. Like a Newton's cradle, he pulled away, and let go. But you just kept bouncing back.


End file.
